A. J. Potter


Archibald James Potter was an Irish composer and teacher, who wrote hundreds of works including operas, a mass, and four ballets, as well as orchestral and chamber music.

Early years

Potter was born in Belfast to a Presbyterian family who, oddly, lived on the Falls Road, a republican stronghold. His father was a church organist and piano tuner who was blind since childhood. His mother was, in Potter's own words, "a raging alcoholic". The young Potter escaped a rather grim childhood when he went to live with an aunt in Kent, England.
Possessed of a good voice and natural musical ability, Potter was accepted as a treble by the world-famous choir of All Saints, Margaret Street. In 1933, after four years as a chorister, he was sent to Clifton College, Bristol. From there he went to the Royal College of Music on a scholarship and studied composition under Vaughan Williams. While at the Royal College he won the Cobbett prize for chamber music.
World War II interrupted Potter's music education, and he left college to serve with the Irish Rifles">Irish people">Irish Rifles in Europe and the Far East. After the war Potter settled in Dublin, where he continued his studies at Trinity College Dublin, gaining a Doctorate in Music in 1953.

Life and career

Potter had already started composing chamber and vocal music before the war. Now, established in Dublin, he chose the orchestra as his principal means of expression. His early pieces, such as Rhapsody under a High Sky and Overture to a Kitchen Comedy, showed that Potter had absorbed Vaughan Williams' pastoral style and his love of folk music. In 1952, both pieces were awarded Radio Éireann's "Carolan Prize" for orchestral composition by the adjudicator Arnold Bax. A year later Potter repeated this success when his Concerto da Chiesa, a concerto for piano and orchestra, also won the Carolan Prize.
In 1955 Potter was appointed Professor of Composition at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he became an effective administrator and inspiring teacher.
In the 1960s, Potter turned to ballet, writing four orchestral scores for the Cork Ballet company. The first of these, Careless Love, became the composer's own favourite of all his compositions. Several years later, following a successful battle with alcoholism, he wrote what some regard as his magnum opus, Sinfonia "de Profundis". The première was given at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin on 23 March 1969 in a performance by the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Albert Rosen. The Irish Times referred to the concert as a "major national event". In December 1969, Potter received a Jacob's Award for the composition.
Potter's last substantial work, an opera entitled The Wedding, received its first public performance in Dublin in 1981, almost a year after the composer's death.

Death

Potter died suddenly at his home in Greystones, County Wicklow at the age of 61. His body is buried in the nearby Redford cemetery.

Selected works

Stage
Orchestra
  • Overture to a Kitchen Comedy
  • Rhapsody Under a High Sky
  • Concerto da Chiesa for piano and orchestra
  • Fantasia Gaelach No. 1
  • Aiste O na Gleannta: Rhapsody on Corrymeela
  • Variations on a Popular Tune
  • Finnegan's Wake
  • Fantasia Eireannach
  • Irish Rhapsody for violin and orchestra
  • Hunters Holiday. Concertino for horn and orchestra
  • Fantasy for clarinet and strings
  • Spanish Point. Concertino for guitar and orchestra
  • Rhapsody for the End of the Day for violin and orchestra
  • Tuama an dragúinín. Concerto for double bass and orchestra
  • Concerto for Orchestra
  • Concertino Benino for trumpet and orchestra
  • Binneadtin Beil. Concertino for harmonica and orchestra
  • Ceithre fichid lá. Concertino for cello and orchestra
  • Sinfonia de Profundis
  • A Hundred Thousand Welcomes for orchestra
  • Symphony No. 2
  • The Grey Dog of the Sea. Concertino for cor anglais and orchestra
  • An Trumpa Mor. Trombone concertino
Choral
  • The Voice of the Rising for chorus and orchestra
  • The Cornet of Horse for contralto, male chorus and orchestra
  • Four Petrarch Sonnets for mixed choir SATB
Brass/military band
  • Finnegan's Wake
  • Irish March and Trio
  • Clare Rhapsody
  • Catstone Cassation
  • Trombones at Templemore
  • Phoenix Park
  • Salala's Castle
Chamber music
  • Fantasie No. 1, for string quartet
  • Fantasie No. 2, for string quartet
  • Fugue, for string trio
  • String Quartet
  • A House Full of Harpers: Concerto Grosso, for 2 concert harps and 12 Irish harps
  • Céad mile bienvenues, for brass septet
  • Hail to the Glasshouse, for brass quartet
  • Arklow Quartet, for brass quartet
  • Quartet, for four trombones
Solo instrument
  • Scherzo, for piano
  • Nocturne, for piano
  • Suite for Solo Piano
  • Étude bitonal, for Irish harp
Songs for voice and piano
  • The Violet
  • Pippa's Song
  • The Hag
  • Six Songs from The Glens of Antrim
  • Ode to Dives
  • Song Suite
  • The End of the Day
  • Nancy Brown
  • Homage to Belloc
  • Corner of My Heart
  • ''En passant par la Guyenne''

    Recordings

  • Dreaming, Anew NEWD 406
  • Romantic Ireland, Marco Polo 8.223804
  • Sinfonia de Profundis", Finnegan's Wake, Fantasia Gaelach No. 1, Variations on a Popular Tune, Overture to a Kitchen Comedy, Marco Polo 8.225158
  • Sinfonia de Profundis. RTE 61.
  • Ceol Potter, Gael Linn CEFCD 034

    Further references

*
Category:1918 births
Category:1980 deaths
Category:20th-century [classical composers from Northern Ireland]
Category:20th-century male musicians from Northern Ireland
Category:Alumni of the Royal College of Music
Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
Category:British Army personnel of World War II
Category:Male classical composers from Northern Ireland
Category:Jacob's Award winners
Category:London Irish Rifles soldiers
Category:Male composers from Northern Ireland
Category:Military personnel from Belfast
Category:Irish male opera composers
Category:Musicians from Belfast
Category:Opera composers from Northern Ireland
Category:People educated at Clifton College
Category:Pupils of Ralph Vaughan Williams